Jeremiah 23:29

Is not My Word like as a fire?

saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

God’s fire and hammer

I. The word of God has power in it.

1. It is like a fire.

(1) You who are the people of God must often have felt greatly comforted, encouraged, and cheered, when you have been hearing the Gospel, just as when, on a cold day, and you are half benumbed, if your eyes arc blindfolded you know when you are coming near a fire by the genial glow which you feel You delight yourself in the Word of the Lord as you warm your hands at a bright cheery fire.

(2) But, next, fire is only at work very moderately when it yields us comfort; it has also the effect of paining, awakening, arousing. So, even if you are an unconverted man, if you have as yet no knowledge of the power of the Gospel of God, yet if you come in contact with it, I will warrant you that you will know it. Very likely you will show that you know it by getting very angry, growing very indignant. Men do not like being singed and scorched by the Gospel

(3) Fire also has a melting power, and so has the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that we could get the hearts of many hardened ones into the very centre of the blessed flame, till the holy heat should make them flow like melted wax before the presence of the God of Israel!

(4) More than that, the Gospel has a consuming power. When it first comes into a district, it finds people indifferent to it; but possibly it begins by burning up some one of their vices. There have been old systems of iniquity that have been hoary with age, but when, at last, they have been attacked by the Church of God, with the sword of the Spirit, and the Gospel of Christ, they have been utterly destroyed.

2. God’s Word is like a hammer: “and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.” So that, whenever a minister has the Gospel to use, this simile should teach him how he ought to use it; with his whole might let him strike with it mighty blows for his Lord. Hammer away, then, brethren, hammer away, with nothing but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The heart that is struck may not yield even year after year, but it will yield at last.

3. Now put the two together,--the fire and the hammer,--and you will see how God makes His servants who are to be instruments for His use. He puts us into the fire of the Word; He melts, He softens, He subdues. Then He takes us out of the fire, and welds us with hammer-strokes such as only He can give, till He has made us fit instruments for His use; and He goes forth to His sacred work of conquering the multitudes, having in His hands the polished shafts that He has forged with the fire and the hammer of His Word.

II. Illustrate this statement by noticing certain parts of God’s Word which have, to our personal knowledge, operated both as a fire and a hammer upon the hearts of men.

1. A large part of God’s Word is taken up with the revelation of His law, and you cannot fully preach the Gospel if you do not proclaim the law of the Lord. Men will never receive the balm of the Gospel unless they know something of the wounds that sin hath made. If the law of God is faithfully and fully preached, what a fire it is! What a hammer it is!

2. But have you not also felt that there is fire-work and hammer-work in the teaching of the Gospel? The Gospel of redemption through the precious blood of Jesus, the Gospel which tells of full atonement made, the Gospel which proclaims that the utmost farthing of the ransom price has been paid, and that, therefore, whosoever believeth in Jesus is free from the law, and free from guilt, and free from hell,--the telling out of this Gospel has made men’s hearts burn within them, and has dashed out the very brains of sin, and made men joyfully flee to Christ.

3. Above all, what fire-and-hammer power there is in the doctrine of the Cross! Man must yield when the power of the Spirit of God applies to his heart the doctrine of the precious blood.

III. Put the statement of the text to a practical test. “Is not My Word like as a fire, saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”

1. Let us, first, try it upon ourselves. When you are sad, do not run into your neighbour’s house, do not sit down alone, and weep in sullen despair; get you to the Word of the Lord. There is such sweetness in it, there is such power in it, that in a short time you shall have beauty instead of ashes, and songs instead of sighs. You say that you are not sad, but you are very sleepy; you have become very drowsy and dull in the ways of God; you have not the earnest spirit you used to have, nor half the spiritual life and vigour you once felt. Very well, then, come to God’s Word; read it, study it, listen to it, find Out where that Word is faithfully preached, and go there. Oh, how quickly the Lord has blessed some of us in times of great barrenness! Perhaps another says, “I have lost so much of my comfort, and assurance, and joy, that I feel as if I had grown quite cold and hard and insensible.” Why need you be cold when God’s Word is like as a fire? Why need your heart remain like a rock when God’s Word is like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces:

2. Let us try to use it upon others. I have an opinion that there are a great many persons in this world, whom we give up as hopeless, who have never been really tried and tested with the Gospel in all their lives. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Fire and hammer

I. A picture of the human heart.

1. It has within it that which requires to be consumed. Who that knows his own soul can gainsay this? There is ignorance, prejudice, error, selfishness, guilt, and ungenerous and pernicious principles of action that must be consumed. They pollute the conscience, they enthral the faculties, they enervate the powers of the soul. Like the luxuriant growth of the prairies, they must be burned down to the root before the soil can be cultivated.

2. It is in an unimpressionable condition. It is like a “rock,” insensitive, hard, obdurate, and so it verily is in its unregenerate state.

II. A picture of the Divine Word.

1. It is a fire. “Is not My Word like as a fire? saith the Lord.”

(1) It is a penetrating fire, it burns into the inmost soul.

(2) It is a destructive fire, it burns up the wrong.

(3) It is a purifying fire, it consumes all that is noxious and vile,

(4) It is an unquenchable fire, it cannot be put out; the billows, from the great ocean of worldliness, infidelity and superstition, have been dashing against it for centuries; but it burns as strongly and brightly as ever.

2. It is a Divinely constructed “hammer,” to break through the stratum of moral rock which covers the soil of the heart, shutting out the sunbeam and the shower, and preventing the germination and growth of the seeds of virtue and religion. Conclusion--Thank God for this fire and hammer! Let the fire burn, let the hammer strike. (Homilist.)

Human resistance and Divine power

I. The moral resistance of man. “The rock”--the unconverted heart of man.

1. Every rock has a character. There are aqueous and igneous rocks--stratified and unstratified rocks. So with hearts; some are hard and unyielding, others are soft and flexible; some are full of pride and selfishness, others are gentle and benevolent. But they are all “rock”--hard against God. They all agree in this, though they may differ in other respects.

2. Rocks remain in the same condition for ages. So with sin-hardened hearts. Under the kindly rays of the Father’s countenance, and the Saviour’s love, they remain in the same unmoved and unfeeling state. The Lord has called, but they have not answered--they have despised His reproofs.

3. These rocks may be broken. They are composed of blocks of stone. The hardest is formed by the adhesion of minute particles; these may be separated--pieces may be detached, and the whole rock broken. If we now apply this to the heart, we shall see the points of resemblance. Each heart has many parts and many avenues. One part after another is conquered, until the whole soul is subdued, and brought in humble submission to Jesus.

4. These rocks may be made useful Rock is valuable in many ways: it girds the seacoast and stops the encroachment of the waters; it is the best foundation for the friendly lighthouse; it gives us the most solid and the most beautiful of buildings. So with the wicked hearts around us. It is true, that they are not only useless but injurious in their sinful unquarried state; yet from these must come the able and devoted servant of Christ, the loving disciple, the brave defender of the faith, and the real benefactors of a needy world. They need only to be broken to be useful.

II. The divine means employed by God to remove this resistance.

1. There is adaptedness in the means to accomplish the desired result. The result is to be the broken rock. There is no instrument so adapted for breaking as the hammer. It has weight in a small compass. It has also hardness; it will not yield to the stone; it has a peculiar shape and this gives it power. Thus the Word of God, with all its doctrines, promises, and threatenings--in all its discoveries of truth, and sublime revelations of the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, is fitted to make deep and abiding impressions on the mind, and to subdue the soul.

2. There is a concentration of power. The same part is struck repeatedly,--each stroke tells. It cannot withstand. The hardest rock will yield to this concentrated force. The Word is similarly applied to the heart in order to subdue It. The rays of Divine truth shine upon the heart’s false refuges until they are seen to be such, and are abandoned.

3. There is the strong arm in its application. There must not only be the means, but these must be applied by intelligence and power. This is seen in other matters. For instance, we may have all the apparatus for taking a correct likeness, but unless the photographer is there to superintend the process, we shall have no likeness. So with the Word. We must have the Divine Spirit, the arm of the Word, to bring it with convincing and saving power to the heart. (W. Darwent.)

Fire and a hammer symbolical of the law and the Gospel

I. “is not My Word like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces, saith the Lord? “I place this simile before the other, because it is in the order of human procedure, when a mass of ore is to be submitted to the fire, that its metal may be extracted, to beat it small with hammers, then to carry it to the kiln, and finally to the furnace. Take the case of one whom the Word of salvation hath never influenced, who is alienated from God, and with no other principle of affection, or of action, than his own unsanctified reason, or his own unrenewed desires. Here, then, is the rock. But let the law of God speak to his soul in its power; let it show him the perfection of the Lawgiver, the spiritual character of the law, the withering curse pronounced against “every one that continueth not,” &c.; let it moreover display his utter inability to do the will of the Being who chargeth even His angels with folly, by letting him into the secrets of his own fallen nature, and proving that he is carnal, sold under sin. And what will be the consequence? The rock, hard it may have been as the nether millstone, will be bruised and beaten to pieces.

II. But after the mighty and terrible agency of the law, may we hope that the Gospel call of love will be equally effectual? We surely may. “Is not My Word like as a fire? saith the Lord.”

1. Fire hath a penetrating nature, and finds its way into every part of the substance that may be submitted to its action. And surely thus doth the Gospel of our redemption.

2. Is it the nature of fire to enlighten? Even so doth the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It removes the delusion which overspreads the mind of man until it shines into him, and he learns, by the light which it reveals, that “other foundation can no man lay, save that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” It exhibits the Divinity of His character, the freeness of His love, the riches of His salvation, the peace that flows into the heart when His kingdom is embraced and submitted to; the holy nature of His law; the sanctifying work of His Spirit; the brightness and grandeur of those hopes which it enkindles, and the duties to which it binds the obedient children of the love of Jesus.

3. Is it the property of fire to warm every object to which it may be applied? And shall we deny a similar power to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, when communicated to the heart by faith and in sincerity?

4. Hath the fire a purifying energy? So hath the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The refiner’s flame may be fierce, the trial of a child of God beneath the discipline of the Gospel may be severe, but it will have an effect the most salutary and gracious. It will separate the gold from the dross. It will consume the one, and make the other meet to be employed even in the noblest uses.

5. Fire hath a property to comfort. And shall we deny this quality to the mercies of the everlasting Gospel, when faith embraces them, and makes them her own? It is that provision which a gracious God hath sent to sustain us in the way to heaven, as the corn ,was given by Joseph to his brethren, for their sustenance through the wilderness that lay between Canaan and Egypt, whither he had invited them. (R. P. Buddicom.)

The power of God’s Word needful for national education

The circumstances of Judah were new and strange when this question was put by God into the mouth of Jeremiah. The name of Jehovah was now falsely used to cover those deceits for which Baal’s was of old the cloak. Against this new form of an old temptation God now warns the people. He bids them winnow the wheat, and cast away the chaff, and not slight necessary truth because falsehood was abroad. “What is the chaff to the wheat?” The counterfeit cannot have the inner life and power of the original “Is not My Word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer,” &c. Here is the mark of My true message: there is a power and might about it which cannot be caught by imitation. The figure is natural and expressive. The custom on which it is founded still prevails in the East. In Madeira, for example, at this day, if a new road is to be carried through a set of rocky obstacles, a fire is lighted on the bed of rock; and when by its action the solid mass is charred and its cleavage loosened, the hammer of the workman soon breaks it thoroughly away. And this same power, says God, is the true credential of My message: as “the hammer and the fire” against the rock of the wilderness, so shall be My Word and My message against the stoutness of man’s heart. In this sense, evidently, the “Word of God” must not be limited to His written Word; in its first application it did not describe the written Word at all: it was the living ministry of the prophet of the Lord, and not the written law, which was to be discerned from that of all pretenders by its possession of this inner power: and it is therefore a strong and impressive assertion of this great truth, that the power of God, and that only, avails for the real subjection and renewal of man’s heart--that this “fire,” and that “hammer” can break it up; and that this is so exclusively their work, that the possession of this power is truly a mark and a countersign of that administration with which God is coworking. Who can watch himself without seeing how far too strong evil always is, and has been, for his own unaided resistance? When did our best resolutions stand long before the hotness of a pressing temptation and the seeming safety of a fitting opportunity? when did the frost-work of the morning stand before the sunshine of the noon? how often do we find old habits of sin breaking out again, when we deemed them long since quenched; showing, like revived volcanoes, that what seemed extinction was but a temporary lull! On the other hand, who that has noted what is passing round him has not marked some instances in which God’s grace has evidently changed the heart and formed anew the spring of its affections? Who has not seen this heavenly power bow the swelling passions of youth to the pure and peaceable rule of a willing obedience? Who has not seen the proud made humble, the rough-tempered gentle, and the indolent laborious? How broadly too has this truth been sometimes written in the alteration of a nation’s character, and its submission to the Gospel yoke. Whenever the “stone cut out without hands” has indeed smitten a people or nation, how have they and all their former manners crumbled into dust before it. Such then is the witness of experience; and right reason would lead us to expect this difference between the work of God and all inferior power. For, if the hypothesis be true; if man’s nature be thoroughly corrupted to its deepest springs; how can he indeed renew himself to righteousness? That on which he has to work, and that with which he has to work, are both alike defiled; how can the one cleanse the other? From the very nature of things it is impossible. And yet who is there that has closely watched others, or still more himself, who does not know that one of the last and hardest things which we can do, is to bring the mind and soul in very deed to hold this truth? The peculiar attempt of infidelity at present is silently and decently to supersede religion--to speak of it as an excellent thing in its way: but to be always able to do without it. It is the monstrous folly of confessing that God is, and treating Him as if He were not our God. This new form of infidelity might easily be traced as more or less harassing society at present. But what is most to our present purpose, nowhere is it more plainly to be found than in the schemes of education which we hear every day buzzed on every side of us. It is asserted, and with a painful truth, that our people are not now educated as they should be: but what remedy is set before us? A scheme of national education which, more or less, evidently is indeed so framed as to exclude religion. What, then, even for this world, is the object of national education? Doubtless, to form amongst the masses of our population a high-toned character; to make them brave, honest, industrious, and unselfish; and then, to add to this as much of knowledge upon other matters as will enlarge their powers of mind without diverting them from the peculiar duties of their several stations; for this will make them wealthy, powerful, and happy: that is, in one word, you educate your people to give them a higher moral tone; and can mere earthly learning give a man this moral tone? Surely not. The most learned man may, in spite of his learning, continue the most thoroughly depraved. What human understanding can come up in subtlety and power to his who is God’s enemy and man’s: who once was, as we deem, second in power and wisdom to none of God’s highest creatures, and whom spiritual, not carnal wickedness, drew into rebellion and cast down to hell? So that the highest spiritual wickedness may be combined with the greatest mental cultivation. What, then, but God can purify man’s heart? And is it not, then, the mere naked madness of the infidel to endeavour to do this without religion? Is it not, in very deed, to shut God out of His own world, to believe that other means besides His power can be, in truth, “the hammer” and the “fire” to break the heart of man? (Bp. Samuel Wilberforce.)

The Word of God compared to a hammer

1. Words are the vehicle by means of which we convey to others the ideas which exist in our minds, making known our wishes, responding to the speech of our friends, and declaring to the world what manner of men we arc. By the medium of words we give expression to the feelings of kindness and of benevolence toward others, by which we are animated. Our desires for help or assistance in times of difficulty and of danger, are made known by means of language addressed to friends, or to those from whom aid may be expected. Our real characters are often made known by the use which we occasionally make of our tongue, more than by the habitual form of our words, and an accidental inadvertence may do more to enable others to form a correct estimate of us than years of dissembling. Words often fly from our lips, without ever being thought about again, but the consequences which flow from them, either for good or for evil, cannot be calculated. Words spoken by our lips may prove us to be God’s people and animated with love to our fellow-man, or they may brand us as children of the devil, and enemies of religion and of truth.

2. The Word is one of the names by which Christ is known in the New Testament. In the first ages of Christianity a sect arose in the Christian Church, who held some very peculiar opinions, of which the adherents were called Gnostics. They supposed that the world was ruled by one supreme Being, but that under Him there were inferior deities, who presided over departments of creation, to whom were given the names of the Word, the Life, and the Light, and of whom Christ was one. St. John commences his Gospel by declaring the falsity of such an idea, and, instead of denying that Christ was one of these inferior beings, he asserts at once that He was the Word, that He was really God, and that He had existed from the beginning in the bosom of the Father. He is called the Word, because He came upon earth to declare the Father, whom He revealed to man much in the same manner as words make known the desires and intentions of a human being.

3. There is another meaning to be given to the term “word” in Scripture, differing from the speech by which men convey their thoughts one to another, and from the person of Christ. It must be understood as the revelation of His will, which God has condescended to make to man on various occasions, and the various forms which it has assumed in the hands of different persons. In the New Testament it is equivalent to the Gospel preached by Christ Himself, and afterwards by His apostles. It is a powerful agent in the hands of the Almighty, the idea of which is conveyed by a threefold comparison--to a sword, to a fire, and to a hammer, in order to show its effects when applied to the consciences of men.

I. It is manifestly God Himself which is spoken of; for the inquiry is, “Is not My Word. .. like a hammer?” It is the Almighty who uses the Gospel as His instrument for reaching the consciences of sinners, and awakening in them a sense of the value of the blessings which it is calculated to bestow. The Father, Son, and Spirit planned the scheme of redemption in the councils of eternity, by which a lost and degraded race were to be rescued from ruin and death, and to recover their forfeited inheritance. This great work having been finished, the Holy Spirit employs His power in applying it to the consciences of men, giving them ability to see the efficacy of the blood of Christ to wash away sin, renewing them by the washing of regeneration, and shedding abroad in their hearts the love of God.

II. The instrument which the spirit uses in accomplishing this work. It is the hammer of the Word. The age of miraculous manifestations is past, and there is no reason to suppose that God will ever employ miracles to convert men from sin. It is Scripture and Scripture only which He employs to carry home conviction to the soul. God does not speak to man from heaven with an audible voice, commanding him to repent and live, but He speaks by His Spirit, in the words of the revelation which is now in our hands. He does not reveal His will to any, in another manner than by the inspired sentences which contain the embodiment of His gracious purposes of mercy and of love, and which the simplest and most illiterate can understand. The Word is the instrument which Ha always uses, and none other, wielding it like a hammer, to smite the human heart. If you went into the forge of a blacksmith, you would see him, with strong arm, beating a piece of heated iron with a hammer or sledge, in order to form it into some particular shape, either of a nail, a horse-shoe, or a ploughshare. If you went into the shop of a carpenter, you would see him driving home nails into wood with a hammer, as he makes some article of furniture or of utility. Now, in the same manner, the Holy Spirit uses the hammer of the Word, in order to fashion the hearts and characters of the saints, employing particular passages of Scripture for this purpose, by shedding upon them a light, Which, when reflected into the soul, causes them to be felt and experienced in power. He uses the hammer of the Word in order to drive home truth, “as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.”

III. Object upon which the Holy Spirit uses the hammer of the Word. It is called in the text “the rock”; this being a metaphor to convey the idea of the hardness and insensibility of the heart of the natural man. The heart of man is compared to a stone by our Lord Himself, in the parable of the sower. Some of the good seed of the Word is represented as falling upon stony places, where there was little earth, and where it was impossible for it to come to perfection, because it could not take root, and soon withered away. Nothing will grow upon stones or rocks, and no good thing can come out of the heart of the natural man; but, on the contrary, very much evil. But, when the human heart is thus compared to a stone, and in our text, to a rock, what do we exactly understand by the comparison? If you saw a stone lying upon the ground, you would see it to be destitute of the power of motion, a hard, irregular, and useless mass. If you saw a rock out in the sea, at a distance from an iron-bound coast, lashed unceasingly by the restless waves of the ocean, you would see that it ever bids defiance to the utmost rage of the tempest, unaffected and unchanged by the ceaseless flow of the briny waters. These illustrations will give us some idea of the senseless nature and the hardened indifference of the heart of the unconverted mail There are persons in the world upon whom no impression whatever is produced by the tale of sorrow or of distress, the spectacle of suffering or of misery, or by appeals to their feelings of compassion or of sympathy. The story of Divine love, surpassing that of a mother for her child, as much as the Infinite surpasses the finite, the spectacle of suffering and of distress endured in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on the Cross, when Christ drank to the very dregs the cup of wrath, appeals to men to have compassion on themselves, by accepting the mercy which God offers, exhortations to repentance, motives to draw forth the exercise of the feelings of affection and of love, and calls to manifest gratitude for unceasing favours, fail to extract a tear from their insensate eyes, to stir within the soul a single emotion, or to soften their hard and obdurate hearts.

IV. The effects which are produced when the rock is smitten by the hammer. It is said that it is broken in pieces, which conveys to us the idea of destruction. If the human heart be not softened by the ordinary means which the Spirit employs, and if the sinner be not brought to humble himself before God, the only alternative before him is to be broken to shivers. If you went into a blacksmith’s forge, and struck his anvil with a hammer, it would recoil, damaged to some extent by the blow, while the metal of which the anvil is made would be condensed. If the hammer were strong enough, and if a blow of sufficient violence were struck, it is manifest that the anvil would be shivered into fragments. This will give us some idea of the method of the Spirit’s operation, when He strikes the conscience with the hammer of the Word. If all efforts are unavailing, and the stone of the human heart still continues impenetrable, then the awful doom is pronounced--“Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.” The Spirit ceases to strive, invitations to come and drink of the water of life freely are no longer issued, the unpardonable sin has been committed, and nothing remains but the execution of the sentence. The Word is the instrument which we may now turn to account, that we may be saved; but hereafter, if rejected, it will be a witness against us, and a testimony to the justice of the perdition of ungodly men. (J. B. Courtenay, M. A.)